How to Block Websites on Android Devices [3 Methods]

Being able to browse the web without any restrictions is great, but it does have its consequences .

There might be various other reasons why people search about website blocking for android but child safety takes priority over all. No matter how much clean and safe internet appears on the surface, the deeper you go, the darker it becomes. And if the user of the device is a minor, you might also want to block access to adult, gambling and similar sites.

One other reason people search for ways to block websites on android phones is to Block social media access on the phone. You can block apps such as Facebook, Instagram etc. And also the associated websites.

It doesn’t matter what the reason for you to look for website blocking techniques, here in this post is; we will cover the most effective ways to block not only websites, but also apps on your android devices.

The first method we are going to discuss is by using a Free app from play store. The app is called BlockSite, and it can block individual sites and apps that you don’t want the phone user to have access to.

It works great, and it is effortless to set up. Once you install the app and give it accessibility permissions, there is nothing much left to do. Next step is to add the sites and apps that you want to block to its list, and the work is done.

These sites/apps will now fail to load and show an error message upon start. You can see an example in the screenshot below.

If you want to be more cautious, you can even password-protect the BlockSite app to block any unauthorised access. They also support scheduling; you can specify a time range in which you don’t want to have access to specific sites or apps.

2. Block Adult Sites

Now if you want to have access blocked only to some particular type of sites and left everything else unblocked, you need an app with compatible filters. Take porn sites, for example, if you were to add each one of them to your blocklist, it would take forever.

So we need to get an app whose blacklist filters cover most of the popular adult websites. There are tons of apps of this sort available on the play store, so we have only included two of the high-rated ones.

It creates its virtual network connection with VPN which does not allow any adult sites to load. The sites it blocks are pre-defined it its filter settings and do receive regular updates to get new inappropriate sites.

To make sure it works, do not remove it from recent apps and allow all the required permissions that it asks for.

This app can be secured with a PIN to prevent anyone else’s access to it. And once you grant the app administrator privileges of your device, it will become tough to uninstall without the proper pin.

Along with adult content, it also blocks hacking, gambling and other similar websites which are not suitable for children. It enables safe filters by default in Google & Bing to avoid any accidental access to these sites.

It always stays in the memory so as soon you turn the device on, it starts its protection. Uninstall is also not possible without the proper Pin code. You can also enable PIN-only access from the settings to secure the app.

It changes its name on install if you want to access it, open your app drawer and click an app named ‘Safety’. The app is not free and does require a subscription, but, they do provide 30 days. It works great and provides excellent protection for your Android device.

3. Using ‘hosts’ file (Requires Root)

You may not know but the Android operating system also uses a hosts file. It is a file where you can define which sites to allow or which sites to deny any requests to access the internet.

The great thing about this method is that it blocks access to the specified site all across the system. Meaning you can not access the website even if you decide to use a different web browser or app.

To set hosts rule on your android phone, you can follow this simple step:

1. The first thing that you need to do is download a file explorer which supports root access. Here I am going to use ES file explorer; these steps will work for almost every other file explorer app.

2. Next, you want to turn on root access and grant the app root permissions.

3. After that navigate to the hosts file by following this path: Device(Root)>etc.>hosts.

4. Once there open the file named ‘hosts’ in a text editor.

5. Now add the following lines of text onto the file to block access to a website:

127.0.0.1 sitename.com

Here, replace ‘sitename.com‘ with a site of your choice and you are done. The sites which have you have added to the list will now refuse to load and will not be accessible any more.

You can add many lines of sites to the list as you want and they will be blocked. Just make sure to add them in the format specified above, and you are good to go.

Removing site blocker apps from your phone

At last, I also want to share a trick to uninstalling these apps from your device. I have seen many people struggling to turn these apps off after they have forgotten the password.

These apps also won’t uninstall easily. If you are in the same situation, go to your device’s setting, then Security and once there, click on Device Administrator.

From here, select the app name and remove it from there. Now you should be able to uninstall the app from your android phone.

Conclusion

Now, with these simple methods, you should be able to block any website or app on your android device. These methods are straightforward to perform and should work on any newer device (Android 4.4+). But still if you have any questions, leave them in the comments, I will try my best to answer them.